Of Ancient Music and Rune (To Comb or Not to Comb)

Eva Rune/Agneta Stolpe

Once a student asked me how to paint hair. "Use a comb!" I responded out of the blue. I used liquin as a paint medium in this painting to build up the hair. I was tempted to try a comb on this painting but then I realized that neither Rune nor Stolpe had combed their hair before their images were photographed. The photos that I painted these portraits from. Lockrop & Vallåtar = Ancient Swedish Pastural Music was released in 1995 on CD. Originally the recordings were released in 1966 as Locklåtar och musik på horn och pipa = Ancient Swedish Pastoral Music by the Swedish Broadcasting Company and was recorded in the farm pastures in the provinces of Dalarna and Härjedalen between 1949 and 1964. For the CD several newer works were added including this track that was recorded in Stångtjärn at the Falun Folk Festival of 1995 by Torbjörn Ivarsson. Susanne Rosenberg, Eva Rune, and Agneta Stolpe were the callers (kulning) during this concert. Listening to other recordings by these three singers I believe the singer on specific outtake to be Eva Rune, but I can't be sure. Carlos Reynoso, who included this recording on La Vox Humana, gave no information.

"Playing the traverse flute known as lantuy"/Harold C. Conklin

I was excited to paint this particular paring of subject and object because there's something of a reversal happening. The object, from a faraway and exotic place, often half naked, is fully clothed, while the academic western subject, a middle-aged white male, wears no more than some short shorts. The subject is Harold C. Conklin, and the photo of him that I used, was taken near Mt. Yagaw on Mindoro Island in the Philippines in 1953. In the photo Conklin is paired with another fully clothed native Hanunoo named Badu'ihuy. The traverse flute player in the painting above is not named but was used on the 1953 Folkways album Hanunoo Music from the Philippines in the liner notes to illustrate a couple of tunes in which the lantuy (or palawta) flutes were used. The track in the top 100 is one of these: Flute (Lantuy) duet by a girl and her mother. The Hanunoo belong to the Mangyan cultural group native to the mountains of Mindoro, the 7th largest island of the Philippines. When the liner notes were written (in 1953) the Mangyan groups had remained relatively isolated, some groups continue to be without any contact. Most of the population of the island, living on the lower and coastal parts, had been Christianized.

Maranao Lullaby

Maranao Woman and Child
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2019

The LP Music from the Mountain Provinces contains a lullaby that was recorded in 1988 by David Blair Stiffler while he was held captive in the Philippines. Stiffler and his travel companions were abducted at gunpoint by an MNLF rebel group. They were taken to a hut in the mountains on the island of Mindanao and held for over two weeks before they managed to escape. He was given permission by his captors to record a woman he heard singing a lullaby to her baby but later all his equipment was confiscated. They escaped with only the clothes on their backs, their lives, and one cassette tape. Music from the Mountain Provinces was intended for Folkways but after its founder's passing it remained on the shelves until it The Numero Group eventually released it in 2011. The woman, and her baby, in the painting are from the Lanao Province on Mindanao. She was photographed inside a refugee camp. The Maranao are a Muslim minority in the Philippines. Political unrest, rebel groups and ethnic fighting have been the norm in the Philippines for decades especially on Mindanao.